Risk of injuries is always of concern for athletes, particularly for athletes competing in contact and/or physical sports in which protective clothing is worn to limit injuries, such as for example sporting activities including ice hockey, lacrosse, cricket, field hockey, motor cycle riding, and the like. Particularly for stick based sports such as ice hockey, field hockey, lacrosse and cricket, players wear protective gloves such as to limit potential damage to their hands and wrists which may be caused by impacts directed thereagainst by the puck, ball or other players sticks, as the case may be.
Such protective athletic gloves must offer protection to the wearer's hands and wrists, while nevertheless permitting the wearer good flexibility and range of motion. The fingers and thumbs are often vulnerable to impacts, and thus most protective gloves are heavily padded on their exterior while the interior surfaces (i.e. those surfaces on the palm side of the hand which typically contact the stick) are unpadded or have only limited padding. Further, as thumbs are particularly vulnerable, especially to hyperextension, the thumb portion of many protective athletic gloves include a rigid outer shell which is engaged to the glove so as to limit any undue rearward movement of the thumb which might cause hyperextension thereof. However, such rigid outer shells tend to limit flexibility and restrict freedom of movement of the thumb.
While articulated thumb portions in more recently developed protective athletic gloves have attempted to address the problem of providing good protection to impact and hyperextension of the thumb, while nevertheless permitting good flexibility and freedom of movement, improvement in this regard is nonetheless sought.
Therefore, there remains a need for a protective athletic glove capable of offering improved thumb protection.